Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Frontispiece
- Love, Grime And Johannesburg
- Scene 1 A Public Square
- Scene 2 The Prison Cell
- Scene 3 The Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 4 The Prison Cell.
- Scene 5 A City Council Boardroom
- Scene 6 The Prison Cell
- Scene 7 Bokkie's Study
- Scene 8 The Prison Cell
- Scene 9 A Melville
- Scene 10 Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 11 The Open Door
- Scene 12 The Prison Cell
- Scene 13 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 14 A Melville Cafe.
- Scene 15 The Prison Cell
- Scene 16 Office Corridors
- Scene 17 Bokkie's Study
- Scene 18 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 19 The Prison Cell
- Scene 20 The Doorway
- Scene 21 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 22 The Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 23 A Cheap Bruma Lake Hotel Room
- Scene 24 The Public Square
Scene 11 - The Open Door
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 June 2019
- Frontmatter
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Frontispiece
- Love, Grime And Johannesburg
- Scene 1 A Public Square
- Scene 2 The Prison Cell
- Scene 3 The Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 4 The Prison Cell.
- Scene 5 A City Council Boardroom
- Scene 6 The Prison Cell
- Scene 7 Bokkie's Study
- Scene 8 The Prison Cell
- Scene 9 A Melville
- Scene 10 Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 11 The Open Door
- Scene 12 The Prison Cell
- Scene 13 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 14 A Melville Cafe.
- Scene 15 The Prison Cell
- Scene 16 Office Corridors
- Scene 17 Bokkie's Study
- Scene 18 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 19 The Prison Cell
- Scene 20 The Doorway
- Scene 21 A Melville Cafe
- Scene 22 The Office of the Chief of Police
- Scene 23 A Cheap Bruma Lake Hotel Room
- Scene 24 The Public Square
Summary
The stage becomes very dark. A piercing light reveals BONES standing in the doorway. He talks directly to the audience.
BONES: Me.You wanna know about me? I am outraged! Gatvol! My heart is full of anger! Ke tlhaguna magala a mahibidu. Ke nkga masepa ka molomo. (7 chew red hot coal. I am so angry all that comes out of my mouth smells like shit.)
Who are these people? They lock their victims in meat fridges - suffocate them to death! They take hot irons and iron people's faces! They rape eighty-year-old ladies! Ba sule maikutlo. Dipelo di thatafetse. (Their feelings are dead. Their hearts have turned to stone.) Where is the honour, where is the style, what has happened to the profession? Full of riff raff and violent little boys!
In the old days, toeka se dae, we were proper gangsters, bo dimane. We had a set of rules, a code of conduct! Ons het die Capos, die kingpins geluister. (We listened to the chiefs, the kingpins.) There were certain ways and means we did things! We knew who we were robbing and why! We didn't want blood. Die moegoes is bloody vampires! (These fools are bloody vampires). We didn't want bullet holes through the head. We used reason! Everybody's too greedy now. Onse motto (our motto) was small amounts, pride and cleanliness in our work! And full amount of honour! Now, they just mad! These young boys. They kill for nothing! They like to hear the screaming! They're bloody vampires!
We went to church schools. We learnt respect. We fed our children, looked after our mothers.
Them! Their motto - gun, fast car, easy money and lots of poes! No school, no family, no God!
They dunno who they are! No balls, nothing inside! They gotta do all this stuff so they feel like men! Burning, suffocating, raping, shooting! Ek is vokken gatvol! (I am bloody fed up! Guts full!) So if you want to know about Jo'burg, kwa nyama ayipheli - kuphela amazinyo endoda, kwa nyama ayipheli - kuphela amazinyo endoda (lit: theres so much meat in Jo ‘burg that you cannot finish it - only the mans teeth will deteriorate; fig: lots to see and do in Jo ‘burg - you –11 never manage it all).
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- Information
- Love, Crime and Johannesburg , pp. 28 - 29Publisher: Wits University PressPrint publication year: 2000